and soothes us with a strain of such mingled solemnity and tenderness, as "might make angels weep:"

"What though the radiance which was once so bright,
Be now for ever taken from my sight,

Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind,
In the primal sympathy

Which having been, must ever be,
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering,

In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind.

And oh ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves,
Think not of any severing of our loves!
Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;
I only have relinquish'd one delight

To live beneath your more habitual sway.

I love the Brooks which down their channels fret,
Even more than when I tripp'd lightly as they;
The innocent brightness of a new-born Day
Is lovely yet;

The Clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober colouring from an eye
That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality;
Another race hath been, and other palms are won.
Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."

The genius of the poet, which thus dignifies and consecrates the abstractions of our nature, is scarcely less felicitous in its pictures of society at large, and in its philosophical delineations of the characters and fortunes of individual man. Seen through the holy medium of his imagination, all things appear "bright and solemn and serene"-the asperities of our earthly condition are softened away -and the most gentle and evanescent of its hues gleam and tremble over it. He delights to trace out those ties of sympathy by which the meanest of beings are connected with the general heart. He touches the delicate strings by which the great family of man are bound together, and thence draws forth sounds of choicest music. He makes us partake of those joys which are "spread through the earth to be caught in stray gifts by whoever will find" them-discloses the hidden wealth of the soul-finds beauty everywhere, and "good in every thing." He draws character with the softest pencil, and shades it with the pensive tints of gentlest thought. The pastoral of The Brothers-the story of Michaeland the histories in the Excursion which the priest gives while standing among the rustic graves of the church-yard, among the mountains, are full of exquisite portraits, touched and softened by a divine imagination which human love inspires. He rejoices also to exhibit that holy process by which the influences of creation are shed abroad in the heart, to excite, to mould, or to soften. We select the following stanzas from many passages of this kind of equal beauty, because in the fantasy of nature's making "a lady of her own," the object of the poet is necessarily developed with more singleness than where reference is incidentally made to the effect of scenery on the mind:

"Three years she grew in sun and shower,
Then Nature said, a lovelier flower
On earth was never sown;
This child I to myself will take,
She shall be mine, and I will make
A lady of my own!

Myself will to the darling be

Both law and impulse: and with me
The girl, in rock and plain,

In earth and heaven, in glade and bower,
Shall feel an overseeing power,

To kindle or restrain.

She shall be sportive as the fawn,
That wild with glee across the lawn

Or up the mountain springs;
And her's shall be the breathing balm,
And her's the silence and the calm
Of mute insensate things.

The floating clouds their state shall lend
To her; for her the willow bend;

Nor shall she fail to see

Even in the motions of the storm

Grace that shall mould the maiden's form

By silent sympathy.

The stars of midnight shall be dear

To her; and she shall lean on air

In many a secret place

Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
And beauty, born of murmuring sound,
Shall pass into her face!"

But we must break off to give a passage in represents the effect of the tropical grandeur a bolder and most passionate strain, which and voluptuousness of nature on a wild and fiery spirit-at once awakening and half-redeeming its irregular desires. It is from the poem of "Ruth,"-a piece where the most profound of human affections is disclosed amidst the richest imagery, and incidents of wild romance are told with a Grecian purity of expression. The impulses of a beautiful and daring youth are thus represented as inspired by Indian scenery:

"The wind, the tempest roaring high,
The tumult of a tropic sky,

Might well be dangerous food,
For him, a youth to whom was given
So much of earth, so much of heaven,
And such impetuous blood.

Whatever in those climes he found
Irregular in sight or sound,

Did to his mind impart

A kindred impulse, seem'd allied
To his own powers, and justified
The workings of his heart.

Nor less to feed voluptuous thought,
The beauteous forms of Nature wrought
Fair trees and lovely flowers;
The breezes their own languor lent;
The stars had feelings which they sent
Into those gorgeous bowers.

Yet in his worst pursuits, I ween
That sometimes there did intervene
Pure hopes of high intent;
For passions link'd to forms as fair
And stately, needs must have their share
Of noble sentiment."

We can do little more than enumerate those pieces of narrative and character, which we esteem the best in their kind of our author's works. The old Cumberland Beggar is one

of those which linger most tenderly on our | sagest antiquarian might muse over in vain, memories. The poet here takes almost the and his name engraven in a wreath or posy lowliest of his species-an aged mendicant, around three bells with which he had endowed one of the last of that class who made regular the spire. "So," exclaims the poet, in strains circuits amidst the cottages of the north-and as touching and majestic as ever were breathed after a vivid picture of his frame bent with over the transitory grandeur of earthyears, of his slow motion and decayed senses, "So fails, so languishes, grows dim and dies, he asserts them not divorced from goodAll that this world is proud of. From their spheres traces out the links which bind him to his The stars of human glory are cast down; fellows-and shows the benefit which even Perish the roses, and the flowers of kings, he can diffuse in his rounds, while he serves Princes and emperors, and the crowns and palms as a record to bind together past deeds and Of all the mighty, withered, and consumed." offices of charity-compels to acts of love by "the mild necessity of use" those whose hearts would otherwise harden-gives to the young "the first mild touch of sympathy and thought, in which they find their kindred with a world where want and sorrow are"-and enables even the poor to taste the joy of bestowing. This last blessing is thus set forth and illustrated by a precious example of selfdenying goodness and cheerful hope, which is at once more tear-moving and more sublime than the finest things in Cowper:

-"Man is dear to man; the poorest poor Long for some moments in a weary life

When they can know and feel that they have been,
Themselves, the fathers and the dealers out
Of some small blessings; have been kind to such
As needed kindness, for this single cause,
That we have all of us one human heart.
-Such pleasure is to one kind being known,
My neighbour, when with punctual care, each week
Duly as Friday comes, though prest herself
With her own wants, she from her chest of meal
Takes one unsparing handful for the scrip

Of this old mendicant, and, from her door
Returning with invigorated heart,

Sits by her fire, and builds her hope in Heaven."

Then, in the Excursion, there is the story of the Ruined Cottage, with its admirable gradations, more painful than the pathetic narratives of its author usually are, yet not without redeeming traits of sweetness, and a reconciling spirit which takes away its sting. There, too, is the intense history of the Solitary's sorrows

there the story of the Hanoverian and the Jacobite, who learned to snatch a sympathy from their bitter disputings, grew old in controversy and in friendship, and were buried side by side-there the picture of Oswald, the gifted and generous and graceful hero of the mountain solitude, who was cut off in the blossom of his youth-there the record of that pleasurable sage, whose house Death, after forty years of forbearance, visited with thronging summonses, and took off his family one after the other, "with intervals of peace," till he too, with cheerful thoughts about him, was "overcome by unexpected sleep in one blest moment," and as he lay on the "warm lap of his mother earth," "gathered to his fathers." There are those fine vestiges, and yet finer traditions and conjectures, of the good knight Sir Alfred Irthing, the "mild-hearted champion" who had retired in Elizabeth's days to a retreat among the hills, and had drawn around him a kindred and a family. Of him nothing remained but a gentle fame in the hearts of the villagers, an uncouth monumental stone grafted on the church-walls, which the

In the Excursion, too, is the exquisite tale of poor Ellen-a seduced and forsaken girlfrom which we will give one affecting incident, scarcely to be matched, for truth and beauty, through the many sentimental poems and tales which have been founded on a simi

lar wo:

"-Beside the cottage in which Ellen dwelt

Stands a tall ash tree; to whose topmost twig
A thrush resorts, and annually chants,
At morn and evening from that naked perch,
While all the undergrove is thick with leaves,
A tine-beguiling ditty, for delight

Of his fond partner, silent in the nest.
-Ay why,' said Ellen, sighing to herself,

'Why do not words, and kiss, and solemn pledge;
And nature that is kind in Woman's breast,
And reason that in Man is wise and good,
And fear of Him who is a righteous Judge,-
Why do not these prevail for human life,
To keep two hearts together, that began

Their spring-time with one love, and that have need
Of mutual pity and forgiveness, sweet

To grant, or be received, while that poor bird,
-O come and hear him! Thou who hast to me
Been faithless, hear him, though a lowly creature,
One of God's simple children that yet know not
The universal Parent, how he sings

As if he wished the firmament of Heaven
Should listen, and give back to him the voice
Of his, triumphant constancy and love;
The proclamation that he makes, how far
His darkness doth transcend our fickle light!'

"Such was the tender passage, not by me
Repeated without loss of simple phrase,
Which I perused, even as the words had been
Committed by forsaken Ellen's hand
To the blank margin of a Valentine,
Bedropped with tears."

With these tear-moving expressions of illfated love, we may contrast the following rich picture of the affection in its early bloom, from the tale of Vandracour and Julia, which will show how delightedly the poet might have lingered in the luxuries of amatory song, had he not chosen rather to brood over the whole world of sentiment and passion:

"Arabian fiction never filled the world

With half the wonders that were wrought for him.
Earth breathed in one great presence of the spring;
Life turned the meanest of her implements
Before his eyes to price above all gold;
The house she dwelt in was a sainted shrine;
Her chamber window did surpass in glory
The portal of the dawn; all paradise
Could, by the simple opening of a door,
Let itself in upon him; pathways, walks,
Swarmed with enchantment, till his spirit sank,
Surcharged, within him, overblest to move
Beneath a sun that walks a weary world
To its dull round of ordinary cares;
A man too happy for mortality."

with emotions equally remote from pedantry
and from intolerance-regarding not only the
grace and the loveliness of their forms, but
their symbolical meaning-tracing them to
their elements in the human soul, and bringing
before us the eldest wisdom which was im-
bodied in their shapes, and speedily forgotten
by their worshippers. Thus, among "the pal-
pable array of sense," does he discover hints
of immortal life-thus does he transport us
back more than twenty centuries-and enable
us to enter into the most mysterious and far-
reaching hopes of a Grecian votary:-
-A Spirit hung,

Perhaps the highest instance of Words- | pher as well as of a poet. He reviews them worth's imaginative faculty, exerted in a tale of human fortunes, is to be found in "The White Doe of Rylstone." He has here succeeded in two distinct efforts, the results of which are yet in entire harmony. He has shown the gentle spirit of a high-born maiden gathering strength and purity from sorrow, and finally, after the destruction of her family, and amidst the ruin of her paternal domains, consecrated by suffering. He has also here, by the introduction of that lovely wonder, the favourite doe of his heroine, at once linked the period of his narrative to that of its events, and softened down the saddest catastrophe and the most exquisite of mortal agonies. A gallant chieftain, one of the goodliest pillars of the olden time, falls, with eight of his sons, in a hopeless contest for the religion to which they were devoted-the ninth, who followed them unarmed, is slain while he strives to bear away, for their sake, the banner which he had abjured-the sole survivor, a helpless woman, is left to wander desolate about the silent halls and tangled glades, once witnesses of her joyous infancy-and yet all this variety of grief is rendered mild and soothing by the influences of the imagination of the poet. The doe, which first with its quiet sympathy excited relieving tears in its forsaken mistress, which followed her, a gentle companion, through all her mortal wanderings, and which years after made Sabbath visits to her grave, is, like the spirit of nature, personified to heal, to bless, and to elevate. All who have read the poem aright, will feel prepared for that apotheosis which the poet has reserved for this radiant being, and will recognise the imaginative truth of that bold figure, by which the decaying towers of Bolton are made to smile upon its form, and to attest its unearthly relations:

"There doth the gentle creature lie

With these adversities unmoved;
Calm spectacle, by earth and sky
In their benignity approved!
And ay, methinks, this hoary pile,
Subdued by outrage and decay,
Looks down upon her with a smile,

A gracious smile, that seems to say,
'Thou art not a Child of Time,

But daughter of the eternal Prime!'" Although Wordsworth chiefly delights in these humanities of poetry, he has shown that he possesses feelings to appreciate and power to grasp the noblest of classic fictions. No one can read his Dion, his Loadamia, and the most majestic of his sonnets, without perceiving that he has power to endow the stateliest shapes of old mythology with new life, and to diffuse about them a new glory. Hear him, for example, breaking forth, with holy disdain of the worldly spirit of the time, into this sublime apostrophy:

"Great God! I'd rather be

A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn:
So might I, standing on some pleasant lee,
Have glimpses which might make me less forlorn;
Haye sight of Proteus coming from the sea,

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn!"

But he has chosen rather to survey the majesties of Greece, with the eye of a philoso

Beautiful region! o'er thy Towns and Farms,
Statues, and Temples, and memorial Tombs ;
And emanations were perceived, and acts
Of immortality, in Nature's course,
Exemplified by mysteries, that were felt
As bonds, on grave Philosopher imposed
And armed Warrior; and in every grove,
A gay or pensive tenderness prevail'd
When piety more awful had relaxed.
'Take, running River, take these locks of mine,'
Thus would the votary say, this sever'd hair,
My vow fulfilling, do I here present,
Thankful for my beloved child's return.
Thy banks, Cephisus, he again hath trod,
Thy murmurs heard ; and drunk the crystal lymph
With which thou dost refresh the thirsty lip,
And moisten all day long these flowery fields.'
And doubtless, sometimes, when the hair was shed
Upon the flowing stream, a thought arose
Of life continuous, Being unimpair'd
That hath been, is, and where it was and is
There shall be,-seen, and heard, and felt, and known,
And recognised,-existence unexposed
To the blind walk of mortal accident;
From diminution free, and weakening age,
While man grows old, and dwindles and decays;
And countless generations of mankind
Depart and leave no vestige where they trod."

We must now bring this long article to a close-and yet how small a portion of our author's beauties have we even hinted! We have passed over the clear majesty of the poem of "Hart Leap Well"-the lyrical grandeur of the Feast of Brougham Castle-the masculine energy and delicate grace of the Sonnets which, with the exception perhaps of one or two of Warton and of Milton, far exceed all others in our language-"The Wagoner," that fine and hearty concession of a waterdrinker to the joys of wine and the light-hearted folly which it inspires-and numbers of smaller poems and ballads, which to the superficial observer may seem only like woodland springs, but in which he who ponders intently will discern the breakings forth of an undercurrent of thought and feeling which is silently flowing beneath him. We trust, however, we have written or rather quoted enough to induce such of our readers as hitherto have despised the poet on the faith of base or ignorant criticism to read him for themselves, especially as by the recent appearance of the Excursion in octavo, and the arrangement of the minor poems in four small volumes, the whole of his poetical works are placed within their reach. If he has little popularity with the multitude, he is rewarded by the intense veneration and love of the finest spirits of the age. Not only

Coleridge, Lloyd, Southey, Wilson, and Lamb | —with whom his name has been usually connected-but almost all the living poets have paid eloquent homage to his genius. He is loved by Montgomery, Cornwall, and Rogersrevered by the author of Waverley-ridiculed and pillaged by Lord Byron! Jeffrey, if he begins an article on his greatest work with the pithy sentence "this will never do," glows even while he criticises, and before he closes, though he came like Balaam to curse, like him "blesses altogether." Innumerable essays, sermons, speeches, poems-even of those who profess to despise him-are tinged by his fancy and adorned by his expressions. And there are no small number of young hearts, which have not only been enriched but renovat-mortal as himself," and that it was ever ined by his poetry-which he has expanded, purified, and exalted-and to which he has given the means of high communion with the good and the pure throughout the universe. These, equal at least in number to the original lovers of Shakspeare or of Milton, will transmit his fame to kindred spirits, and whether it shall receive or be denied the honour of fashion, it will ever be cherished by the purest of earthly minds, and connected with the most majestic of nature's scenery.

Too many of our living poets have seemed to take pride in building their fame on the sands. They have chosen for their subjects the disease of the heart-the sad anomalies of humanity-the turbulent and guilty passions which are but for a season. Their renown, therefore, must necessarily decline as the species advances. Instead of tracing out the lineaments of the image of God indelibly impressed on the soul, they have painted the deformities which may obscure them for

awhile, but can never utterly destroy them. Vice, which is the accident of our nature, has been their theme instead of those affections which are its groundwork and essence. "Yet a little space, and that which men call evil is no more!" Yet a little space, and those wild emotions-those horrid deeds-those strange aberrations of the soul-on which some gifted bards have delighted to dwell, will fade away like the phantoms of a feverish dream. Then will poetry, like that of Wordsworth, which even now is the harbinger of a serener day, be felt and loved and held in undying honour. The genius of a poet who has chosen this high and pure career, too, will proceed in every stage of being, seeing that "it is a thing imspired by affections which cannot die. The poet even in brighter worlds will feel, with inconceivable delight, the connection between his earthly and celestial being-live along the golden lines of sentiment and thought back to the most delicious moments of his contemplations here-and rejoice in the recognition of those joys of which he had tastes and intimations on earth. Then shall he see the inmost soul of his poetry disclosed-grasp as assured realities the gorgeous visions of his infancy-feel "the burden of the mystery of all this unimaginable world," which were lightened to him here, dissolved away-see the prophetic workings of his imagination realized-exult while “pain and anguish and the wormy grave," which here were to him "shapes of a dream," are utterly banished from the view-and listen to the full chorus of that universal harmony whose first notes he here delighted to awaken!

REVIEW OF "NORTH'S LIFE OF LORD GUILFORD."

[RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW.]

Turs old piece of legal biography, which has | been lately republished, is one of the most delightful books in the world. Its charm does not consist in any marvellous incidents of Lord Guilford's life, or any peculiar interest attaching to his character, but in the unequalled naiveté of the writer-in the singular felicity with which he has thrown himself into his subject and his vivid delineations of all the great lawyers of his time. He was a younger brother of the Lord Keeper, to whose affection he was largely indebted, and from whom he appears to have been scarcely ever divided. His work, in nice minuteness of detail, and living picture of motive, almost equals the auto-biographies of Benevento Cellini, Rousseau, and Cibber. He seems to be almost as intensely conscious of all his brother's actions, and the movements of his mind, as they were of their own. All his

ideas of human greatness and excellence
appear taken from the man whom he cele-
brates. There never was a more liberal or
gentle prostration of the spirit. He was evi-
dently the most humane, the most kindly, and
the most single-hearted, of flatterers. There
is a beauty in his very cringing, beyond the
independence of many. It is the most gentle-
man-like submission, the most graceful resig-
nation of self of which we have ever read.
Hence, there is nothing of the vanity of au-
thorship-no attempt to display his own
powers-throughout the work.
He never
comes forward in the first person, except as a
witness. Indeed, he usually speaks of him-
self as of another, as though he had half lost
his personal consciousness in the contempla-
tion of his idol's virtues. The following pas-
sage, towards the conclusion, where he re-
counts the favours of Lord Guilford to a